Video Script

Hello my name is Alex Galloway and I am recording this video on behalf of the Academic Resource Center. Today we are talking about Nathaniel Hawthorne and focusing on Dark Romanticism.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804 in Salem Massachusetts to Nathaniel and Elizabeth Clark Hathorne. One of his ancestors, John Hathorne, was a judge on the Salem Witch Trials. Sometime later, Hawthorne added a “w” to his name so he could be more distance from this side of the family. He attended Bowdoin College and married his wife Sophia on July 9, 1842. Nathniel Hawthorne died in his sleep on May 19, 1864.

He is most famously know for writing the novel The Scarlet Letter. He has also written other stories like “Young Goodman Brown,” “The Minister’s Black Veil,” and “The Birth-Mark.” His novel The Scarlet Letter talks about a young girl who has to wear an “A” on her clothers because she is accused of being an adulteress.

In his works he writes a lot with Dark Romanticism. Dark Romnaticism is a literary subgenre that emerged from the Transcendental philosophical movement popular in nineteenth-century America. These writings are less optimistic than the Trascendentallist writings. They are not as confident that perfection is an imtimate quality of mankind and they belive the natural world is dark and decaying. There has also been some relation to Gothic Fiction.​For more information on English 233 or other resources, please contact the ARC at arc@umo.edu or visit the website www.umoarc.com.